Mother's Kitchen
by EntityThatExists
Summary: Krolia tries to bond with her son but doesn't exactly know how. The other Paladins come up with a solution that turns out to be not so ideal.


**AN: Sorry for any grammar and spelling mistakes english is not my native language, if you spot anything please tell me so I can fix it. (Also how does capitalisation work in english? And commata?)**

Krolia should be happy. Yeah sure Kolivan was mad at her "What do you mean you didn't destroy the weapon?" "Yeah, I was busy saving my son!" so that might make a dent in her career, and she and Keith were staying at the castle of lions for the time being. But really, she should be happy, she was reunited with her son Keith. She had longed for the day she would hold her small baby boy in her arms again (but seriously, do humans not get taller or …) the only problem was Keith didn't seem to fond of her. He didn't seem hostile or anything just indifferent. He wouldn't call her mom or mama or even mother just Krolia. Back on earth she had gotten a clue of a human's relation to his mother and this was nothing like she remembered.

Krolia decided to ask Keith's friends, after all they were humans they would know how a normal relation between a human mother and a human … cub (?) (yeah probably) works. She found the Paladins green, yellow and blue (but piloting the red lion so she just filed him under future son-in-law to avoid confusion). She explained to them how she felt about this whole situation.

"Well to be fair to Keith," Pidge began looking uncomfortable "you did leave him alone when he was still a child. I don't about the Galra but for Humans the mother-child relationship is one of the most important and you kinda deprived him of that …"

"I guess that's why Keith is having some kind of trust issues, he isn't great at connecting with others either." Lance reasoned.

"Not that somebody was particularly helpful in that department." Said Hunk in a mocking tone.

"I wasn't emotionally ready!"

Krolia ignored whatever that was about, she was too concerned about what Pidge had said. She must have hurt her son so much, a stinging feeling of guilt and numbness struck her whole body. "I … I want to repair our relationship" she couldn't bear the thought of her own son hating her, she wanted to fix this "Please help me Paladins, what do Mothers usually do to build a connection to their cubs?"

"Uhm … I think you meant to say children." Suggested Lance "And of course we'll help you! Making grumpy old mullet happy is our duty as his friends." He finished with a flashing smirk.

"The question is how though …" Hunk said "I mean our mothers were all there from the beginning right? There wasn't much 'relation-building' going on."

Lance's smirk disappeared "I guess that's true."

The three Paladins seemed stumped by her problem so Krolia asked: "Well what do human Mothers normally do with their cu- … children?"

"Well lots of things but its also kinda individual …" Pigde noticed herself that her answer wasn't helpful.

"Isn't there a stereotypically thing mothers do?" Krolia was getting a bit desperate, she really wanted to get closer to Keith.

Silence filled the room while the three of them pondered the question.

"What about cooking?" Lance suggested "I know since we don't live in medieval times anymore there's stay at home dads and other possibilities but it is still a stereotype that mothers cook for their children."

"That could work, I always loved my moms cooking!" Hunk said.

Krolia's face lit up "Great! Then I shall cook! I will cook delicious food for my small son!" she said running to the kitchen.

Easier said than done … Krolia stood in the Kitchen starring helpless at the utensils and ingredients some Altean, some from Earth Hunk had acquired them at the Earth shop during their last trip to the space mall and some from all over the galaxy.

She knew what cooking was of course, she had seen how Keith's father did it and also read about it in … well essentially the galran version of history books. Between endless wars and 'glorious' emperors these also described acient technologies and methods like cooking. The Galra had abandoned that art millennia ago for easier and more efficient methods of food preparation like having robots do the work or just eating food goo like the Alteans did.

"This is ridiculous" she said to herself "I'm a member of the Blade! A primitive method of making food shouldn't be challenge!"

She tried to remember what Keith's father did when he cooked. Well he took the ingredients, threw them in some kind of pot or pan or oven or whatever, stirred around with some utensil and out came delicious food.

"Well … I guess that's all, right?" Krolia asked, while chopping random alien vegetables (?) and putting them into a pot.

It was dinner time. Since Krolia occupied the kitchen the only thing on the menu was food goo. The resident alteans and humans (well half human in one case) were about to dig in when Krolia dashed in through the door.

With what was possibly the proudest expression she could muster, she slapped the jar of green goo in front of Keith of the table, sending it to the floor and placed a plate of hot steaming something right before her son.

"Let me guess, I'll be the one to clean that up … "Coran muttered before Krolia interrupted.

"Keith my son, I your beloved mother have cooked for you" she announced loudly.

A quiet "What?" escaped Keith's lips as he starred at the grey thick broth with chunks of undefined matter in it. With an unreadable expression he took a spoon and proceded to try the first meal his own mother had cooked especially for him. For a short moment he was really happy, his mom wanted to show how much she cared, he understood the gesture. Then he turned white, started chocking, lost his balance and fell to the floor.

"KEITH!" yelled everybody in unison. Shiro and Lance ran to his side, Krolia just stood there frozen. Was her cooking so bad? Did Keith hate it? Or did he just hate her? Or would he start hating her now? Did she fail as mother once again, this time with something as basic as cooking? These were just some of the questions that raced throught her mind, while she watched Lance patting Keith on the back while her son coughed.

Pidge got out her laptop and looked through some data "Guys using the ships internal sensors I'd say that stuff Krolia made is poisonous as well as probably disgusting!" she looked at Krolia, noticing that last part was really unnecessary. She wanted to apologize when suddenly Keith got up. He wore an expression he usually reserved for battles, a mix of anger and determination.

"I'm sorry Keith …" Krolia began "I just wanted to …"

Before she could finish Keith took up the spoon again, dug it into the grey mess with a warrior cry and just continued eating.

Everyone took a second to process what just happened. Then they started yelling again.

"Keith you're going to kill yourself! Stop eating that!" Shiro told him.

"NEVER!" was Keith's response "My mom cooked for me! This is something I wished for all my childhood and now I have it! I'm going to eat this and I won't let some puny detail like taste or death stop me!"

Krolia was on the verge of tears, tears of joy. Her son called her 'mom' and he would even go so far as to devour her horrible cooking to make her happy.

"Keith please be reasonable!" yelled Shiro.

"Yeah mullet! It's really sweet that you want to make Krolia happy but your health is more important!" Lance chimed him as he and Shiro tried to get that stuff away from Keith.

".. I guess I should give Krolia some cooking lessons." Reasoned Hunk while observing the chaos.


End file.
